At one time, after I devoured all the available science fiction in the local library, I read novels. By then I could afford paperbacks. I may yet go back to it, starting with Trollope. I worked my way from the greats of the past when novels began in several countries all the way to the present. In America, the novels deteriorated in the 20th century, perhaps from the 50s onward. Dreiser, Wolfe, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald -- I read them all and they were good. I read everything Faulkner and Dreiser wrote. At some point in the 30s and 40s and 50s writing, I began to lose interest. I began having a hard time getting through people like Pynchon and Iris Murdoch. Burroughs was a complete fraud. His stuff was unreadable. He used to cut up passages with a scissors and re-assemble them. At least Kerouac made some sense. Mailer I could read, but he didn't maintain a high standard. Capote didn't interest me. I found Proust of interest initially, but a little went a long way. I could not see reading 4 volumes of "Remembrance of Things Past". My older brother read James Joyce. I couldn't.